I was talking to a friend the other day about ‘social skills’ classes. These are often attended by autistic kids to teach them how to be social. One of the things we discussed was smiles.
In the class, my friend’s child was told that when someone smiles, they are happy.
The child piped up and said ‘Not always’, then proceeded to list a number of different types of smiles.
This included a variety of different smiles, including an evil grin, an expression we are very familiar with!
When I started writing this post, I did a search on ‘types of smiles’, and the results were anything from three types (reward, affiliation, dominance) to ten types, to 19 where only 6 are for happiness, to pictures of 25 or more different smiles!
This simple search showed that it’s not as simple as a smile equals being happy. This was what was taught in the class.
This also goes to show why social interactions can be so hard to navigate, especially for a literal brain. If we see a smile, especially when we’re told that a smile means happiness, we take it on face value and assume that person is happy, even if they aren’t. It can be incredibly confusing.
It also gets hard when we’re expected to have a smile when happy. I know my face doesn’t always reflect what is inside. I know that can be confusing to those who expect me to behave in a certain way, and it’s exhausting trying to think about what others expect when feeling something, especially if I’m not completely sure what I’m feeling at any given moment.
For me, this comes down to life being confusing and those programs only make things more confusing.
As far as my friend and her kid, that kid is going places!
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